There are two extremes in Christianity.

One is not knowing what blessings God has given us in Christ, and so never having the faith to have them manifested in us, through us, and for us—and for others.

The other is seeing all that God has given us in Christ, and yet believing they are somehow separate from Christ and must be sought in addition to Him.

Both extremes are wrong!

There's nothing more dry and frustrating than Christianity that's devoid of all spiritual blessings outside of initial salvation—and nothing more futile and frustrating than constantly seeking outside of Christ what God has already given us in Christ. The first is like crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land and then standing on the bank of the Jordan and believing that's all the Land there is. The second is like entering into the Promised Land and then constantly looking to the lands outside of it for those things that God promised He would give you in the Land.

To the Israelites, God gave the Promised Land. In the Land was the fulfillment of all that God had promised them through their covenant head, who was Abraham.

To us, God gave His only begotten Son. In that Son is the fulfillment of all that God promised us through our covenant head, Jesus Christ, who is also the Son. Christ is not only our covenant head, He is also the fulfillment of the covenant.

All the Israelites had to do to obtain all that God promised them was to possess the Land in its fullness. All we have to do to obtain all that God promised us is to possess Christ in His fullness.

The principle is the same in both covenants.

Outside the Promised Land, the Israelites had nothing—no promise of God to them could there be found. Outside Christ, we have nothing—no promise of God to us can there be found. Only the Land contained all the Old Covenant blessings of God. Only Christ contains all the New Covenant blessings of God. For the Israelites to look outside the Promised Land for God's promises to them would have been useless. For us to look outside Christ for God's promises to us is equally useless.

If we're Christians, if we've been born-again by the Spirit of God, then Christ by His Spirit dwells in us—actually and dynamically lives in us—and His resurrected life contains all the promises that God made to us in Him. This means that because we have Christ we already have all of God's promises. (See Ephesians 1:3) Christ is in us and God's promises to us are in Him—ergo, all of God's promises are already in us (though most of them remain unclaimed by us). That's why the Apostle Paul wrote that the answers to all our prayers are in us:

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. (Ephesians 3:20, italics mine.)

What brings God's promises forth, what makes them active both internally and externally in our lives? Knowledge + faith. A simple formula whose elements Paul prayed over and again that his converts would have:

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. (Ephesians 1:15-18, italics mine.)

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (Ephesians 3:14-17, italics mine.)

All that the Israelites in the Old Covenant needed to enter the Promised Land and obtain all that was in it was knowledge + faith. Failure to enter the physical or spiritual lands of God always comes from lack of one or the other or both. (See Deuteronomy 1:32.)

It's always so in the things of God.

In the Book of Hosea, God said of His chosen people that there was “no knowledge of God in the land,” and because of it His people were “destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:1, 6). Of the results of this same lack of knowledge of God, the Holy Spirit wrote through the prophet Isaiah:

Therefore my people have gone into captivity,
Because they have no knowledge;
Their honorable men are famished,
And their multitude dried up with thirst.
(Isaiah 5:13)

How unfortunate that the same thing can be said today of a vast number of Christians who lack knowledge of Christ. Though Christ lives in them, though a fountain of Living Water bubbles up in their innermost being, they are famished and dried up with spiritual thirst. Imagine!—Filled with Living Water and dried up from thirst!

What is the solution?

As it was with the Israelites in the wilderness, so it is with us. All we need to enter our Promised Land of Christ in all His fullness is knowledge + faith.

A simple formula.

Only two elements.

These pages about Christ have been written to provide you with one of those elements: knowledge—knowledge of Christ.

The faith is up to you!